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FAMILY COINS 



IN THE 



YALE COLLEGE COLLECTION 




FROM THE UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY 

OF OCTOBER, 1860. 



BY FISK Pf'BREWER. 



NEW HAVEN: 

WTTLE, MOREHOUSE * TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 

I860. 






Article II.— ROMAN FAMILY COINS IN THE YALE COL- 
LEGE COLLECTION. 

Since last February, over eleven hundred coins have been 
given to Yale College, which, with some sixteen hundred pre- 
viously owned by the institution, have formed a collection 
which for its size is quite valuable. About seven hundred of 
these are ancient coins, of which a brief catalogue was pub- 
lished in the number of the Yale Literary Magazine for June, 
1860. A historical survey of one department may give to 
those not familiar with numismatic science, a view of the value 
of the collection, and the relation in general of coins to history. 
We select accordingly the Boman family coins which particu- 
larly call for such an account, jis they arearranged in the cat- 
alogue, not chronologically, Cut in -the alphabetical order of the 
'(rentes. The original of ew^y coin described in the following 
list, is in the College CabinefJ except those onScipio Asiagenes, 
Aemilius Paulus, and Lollius Palikanus, o£ which there are 
sulphur copies, taken on Mionnet's plan, from fine specimens in 
a European collection. The interpretations are taken chiefly 
from Eckhel,* and where a letter or figure is obscure on our 
specimen, the description has also been taken from him. 

The series of Koman family coins which belongs to the re- 
publican period and ends with the reign of Augustus Caesar, 
is distinguished from the consular coins of the same period, in 
having an individual's name or the name of a family, while the 
consular coins have only roma. Our cabinet happens to have 
only silver money, the minting of which was introduced B. C. 
269, while gold was sixty years later. That the earliest coin- 
age of Home was copper, and that of Greece proper was silver, 
is not only declared by historians and indicated by the use of 
aes in Latin and dpyvpiov in Greek for money generally, but is 
attested by existing remains. The coining was done in a work- 
shop attached to the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitoline 
Hill, chiefly under the direction of triumviri monetales. 

* Cohen's recent work has not yet been received. 



The first of the consular denarii bore the head of Pallas 
wearing a winged helmet, and on the reverse Castor and Pol- 
lux on horseback. The early prominence of these brothers as 
deities of the people is thus set forth by coins, as it is in the 
language by the primitive forms of swearing, edepol, mecastor- 
The numeral x was frequently put on the obverse to indicate 
that it was a piece of ten asses. In place of the Dioscuri, the 
other divinities, often in a biga or quadriga, whose horses were 
usually at full speed, occur early as varieties of the reverse 
(nummi bigati et quadrigati.) The quinarius, which at first 
had the same emblems as the larger coins, was after a time 
specifically distinguished by a winged figure of Victory in dif- 
ferent attitudes holding a garland (nummus victor iatus.) 

When the names of persons began to appear, the old types 
were retained. The Dioscuri are seen on denarii of c.antesti 

M.ATILI. SARAN CN.LVCR.TRIO Q.MINVC.RVF. NAT. 

The following names appear with i:he biga, c.alli — m.cip- 
ivs — c.pvlcher — t.clovli — d.silanvs.l.f two specimens 

— c.cato — p.servili.m.f. — l.titvri ; and these with the 
quadriga l.antesti.grag — q.anto.balb. — cn. gel — c. 

LICINIVS.C.F. CARB L.SENTI.C.F. L.SATVRNI M.VARG 

— c.vibivs.c.f. pansa . The figure of victory is on the quin- 
arii of p.carisi (obverse, head of Augustus,) — the two of 

M.CATO L.RVBRI. DOSSEN P.SABIN. 

But soon the types were varied to commemorate an act of 
the individual in whose honor the coin was struck, or some one 
of his ancestors. Some, as the Mamilian family, borrowed from 
Greek fable. Livy says that Mamilius, their founder, was si 
famae credimus ab TJlixe deaque Circe oriundus, and Pom- 
peius Festus states more explicitly Mamiliorum familia a 
Mamilia Telegoni filia. On the strength of this descent 
Ulysses is represented on their coin as he is described in the 
Odyssey* returning home. 

" Propt on a staff, a beggar old and bare, 
In rags dishonest fluttering with, the air." 

"Argus, the dog, his ancient master knew, 
He knew his lord : he knew and strove to meet : 



*XVII, 337. 



In vain he strove to crawl, and kiss his feet ; 
Yet (all he could) his tail, his ears, his eyes, 
Salute his master, and confess his joys." 

The obverse has in place of Pallas the head of Mercury as 
being the great-grandfather of Ulysses, and the letter e back 
of the head, probably as a private mark of the die-sinkers to 
distinguish this die from similar ones. The reverse shows the 
son of Laertes wearing a short dress and a conical hat and 
supporting his steps with a staff ; his dog is fawning upon 
him. The inscription is c. mamilgiis limetanms, of which 
name the cognomen was doubtless adopted and introduced in- 
to the gens by C. Mamilius, tribune of the plebs, B. C. 164, 
who brought forward the law de limitibus. 

Others connected their families with the early history of 
their own country. Sex. Pompeius Faustulus, or Fostlus as 
it is written on the coin, has represented on his silver, Romulus 
and Remus with the wolf under the Ruminal fig-tree. The 
shepherd Faustulus, who has found them, is standing near and 
pointing to the woodpecker on the tree. The obverse has the 
primitive head of Pallas with the denarius mark x in front 
and a small pitcher as mint-mark behind the head. 

The Rape of the Sabines is alluded to on a reverse of L. 
Titurius Sabinus, on which are seen two Romans carrying off 
each a Sabine bride. Below is the name l. titvri. The ob- 
verse has a bearded head which, as appears from the letters ta. 
sabin, represents Taiius, the Sabine king. 

In the year 340 B. C. the ancient town of Antium, which 
after a temporary subjection to Rome had enjoyed more than a 
century of prosperous independence, at length as recognized 
head of the Yolscians, declared war against its former mistress. 
It was completely conquered a second time and deprived of its 
shipping, whose beaks thenceforward adorned the speaker's 
platform in the Roman forum. Their appearance will be de- 
scribed below. Though it is not asserted that C. Maenius, the 
consul, received the surname Antiaticus, yet that one of his 
descendants bore it in allusion to this victory, is evident from 
the denarius, which has the winged head of Pallas with an X, 
and on the reverse Victory in a quadriga with the inscription 
p. mae. ant, and below roma. 



In 190 B. C, L. Cornelius Scipio, then famed chiefly as the 
brother of Scipio Africanus, received Greece for his province, 
and the conduct of the war with Antiochus the Great. Having 
brought this to a close the same year, by the decisive battle of 
Magnesia, not to be inferior in title to Africanus, Asiaticum se 
appellari voluit according to Livy, who however presently calls 
him Asiagenes. The Syrian king paid down twenty-five hun- 
dred talents at once according to the treaty, and a large sum was 
given to the soldiery after the triumph. A denarius was struck; 
by the conqueror of Asia, perhaps for the soldiers' donative. 
Obverse, a laureated head : reverse, Jupiter with a thunder- 
bolt in his right hand and a sceptre in the left, riding in a 
quadriga at full speed : in the exergue l.scip.asiag and still 
below P as a mint-mark. The P in these early coins, it will 
be remarked, resembles the early Greek n, as the second stroke 
of the latter was shorter than the first, and the semi-circle of 
the Koman letter was not completed ; thus Greek P, Latin P. 
The device is probably not intended to reverentially ascribe his 
victory to heaven so much as to suggest a comparison of him- 
self with Jupiter in the rapidity of his conquest. This coin 
as well as that of Mamilius above, and those of Postumius and 
Aquilius that follow, are notched on the edge (nummi serrati) } 
probably as a check on counterfeiting. The practice seems to 
have prevailed between 190 and 99 B. C. : at least this piece 
is the earliest and that of Aquilius is the latest serrated, the 
date of whose issue can be determined. It will be observed 
that we are following the chronological order of the types, not 
always of the coining. Pinder, upon I know not what author- 
ity, attributes the denarius in honor of Asiagenes to L. Scipio 
Asiaticus, Consul, A. V. C. 671. 

M. Baebius Tamphilus served in Scipio's war against Anti- 
ochus, and becoming consul eight years later, distinguished his 
administration by a defeat of the Ligurians. Our specimen of 
his money, which does not refer to his victory so definitely as 
another variety, has on the obverse the winged head of Pallas^ 
the denarius-mark, and the legend tampil ; on the reverse 
m.baebiws quinti Films, and roma in the exergue. The de- 
vice is Apollo naked in a quadriga at full speed with a branch 

VOL. II. 19* 



in his right, and a bow in his left hand. Perhaps it was more 
apt to claim the intervention of Apollo's bow in the extirpa- 
tion of these mountaineers than the weapons of the other 
deities. The archaic tampil for the aspirated tamphil, re- 
sembles the old forms pulcros, Cetegos, triumpos, Kartaginem, 
which Cicero quotes in de Oratore. One of these words, how- 
ever, is already aspirated upon the denarius of c.pvlcher 
which was issued before Cicero's time. 

In 180-178 B. C., war was carried on in the very unsettled 
region of farther Spain, and at its close a triumph was enjoyed 
over the Lusitani and Vaccaei by L. Postumius Albinus the 
praetor. A descendant commemorates it on the obverse of his 
coin in a veiled female head as a symbol of Spain, with the le- 
gend hispan. The reverse has his own name a. post, xuli 
Ttlius, spurii mepos albin and the device of a man extending 
his hand to an eagle-mounted military standard fixed near : 
behind him is a lictor's rod. 

Ten years later the war with Perseus, king of Macedonia, 
having been begun with an unsuccessful campaign, L. Aemi- 
lius Paulus, now more than sixty years old, was chosen consul, 
and hastening to the seat of war, decided the fate of the king- 
dom in a one hour's battle near Pydna, June 22d, 168 B. C. 
In the following year, during the last three days of November, 
he celebrated the most magnificent triumph that had ever been 
seen in Rome. The third day witnessed the procession of cap- 
tives, among whom King Perseus and his two sons walked near 
the triumphal car of Paulus. A denarius of the Aemilius 
Paulus family refers to this triumph. In the middle of the 
field is a trophy formed of captured armor. On the right is 
the consul dressed in a toga, and on the left a captive with his 
hands tied behind his back, and accompanied by two children. 
These of course are the king and his two sons. The inscrip- 
tion ter pavlvs may refer either to this third triumph of 
Aemilius, or the third day of the triumph. The obverse, which 
has not been fully explained, bears the veiled head of Concord 
and the legend pavllvs lepidvs concordia. 

As L. Scribonius Libo was tribune of the plebs 149 B. C, 
we here introduce a coin belonging to some member of his 



family. The obverse has the head of Success with the legend 
Bomcs eventws. libo. The reverse represents the famous 
Puteal Libonis* between the words pvteal and scribon. It 
is shaped like a well-curb, about as high as it is broad, and is 
adorned with a garland hung at each end to a harp. 

The Coelia gens record the last step in the adoption of the 
ballot, as perhaps more convenient for the increased number of 
electors than the earlier methods of voting in the comitia. 
Previous laws had introduced the ballot in the election of mag- 
istrates, in trials by the whole people of all crimes except per- 
duellio, and also in the passage and repeal of laws which were 
formerly acted on by pebble-voting. C. Coelius Caldus, who 
had raised himself from a low rank by his oratorical talent, 
becoming tribune in 107, carried a law for the ballot in treason 
trials also. The measure so increased his popularity, that on 
offering himself as a candidate for the consulship thirteen years 
later, he was triumphantly elected. A coin has the legend 
c.coel. caldvs. cos around a beardless head, evidently a por- 
trait, behind which is a tablet marked l d, the initials some- 
times placed on votes for libero and damno, as a and c were 
used for absolvo and condemno. Beneath is caldvs iiivir, 
i. e., a triumvir of the mint in later times, who thus undertakes 
to glorify his ancestor. The reverse has the head of the Sun- 
god, with divergent rays, before which is a round shield, and 
behind an oblong one. This seems to be a reference to the 
names Coelius and Caldus, as if they were derived from coelum 
and calidus. Another interesting denarius of P. Nerva repre- 
sents the polls themselves, where one citizen is dropping a vote 
into the ballot-box, and another is receiving his from the dis- 
tributor at the entrance. 

Manius Aquilius, consul in 101 B. C, was called to military 
service in Sicily, where a second insurrection of the slaves had 
followed the reckless enfranchisement of a part by the avari- 
cious praetor. Eoman authority was prostrate ; her armies 



* Forum putealque Libonis Mandabo siccis. Hor. Ep. 1, XIX, 8, where the prim- 
ary sense of puteal must not be overlooked.—" I will assign the Fcrum and Lilo's 
well-curb to thirsty water-drinkers." 



8 

were twice conquered, and the revolters were becoming organized 
tinder their king Tryphon and his successor Athenion. The 
immediate success of Aquilius, which restored the island to or- 
der and led to a triumph at the end of two years, is indicated 
on a serrated coin. A soldier with a shield on his left arm, in 
which direction he is looking, is supporting with the other a 
naked woman who has fallen on her knees. These figures are 
Aquilius and Sicilia, the inscriptions being man. aqvil. man. 
Filius, man. Nepos, and below sicil. The reverse has the 
youthful bust of Virtue helmeted with the word virtvs before 
and iiivir behind, which belongs with the inscription of the 
other side ,to show that Aquilius the coiner was one of the tri- 
umviri monetales. 

In 81 B. C, L. Cornelius Sulla, having finished a four years' 
war with Mithradates and fought his way to the capital in the 
face of the Marian faction, enjoyed a splendid triumph. One 
of his generals, L. Manlius, acting as Proquaestor, struck a coin 
with the winged head of Pallas and legend L. manli, proq. on 
the obverse. The reverse, with the letters L. svlla. imp., shows 
the dictator in his slow-paced triumphal quadriga, over which 
Victory is hovering ready to place a garland on his head. The 
idea of Victory flying to crown a conqueror, which had been 
displayed three centuries before on the Syracusan medallions, 
has reappeared at different periods since that time, and lately 
with much beauty on the medals given by Congress to Cols. 
Howard and Washington for their exploits at Cowpens in 1781. 

When Sulla, under his authority as dictator, undertook to re- 
construct the government on a more aristocratic basis, among 
other measures he deprived the tribunes of nearly all their 
prerogatives. After his death, M. Lollius Palikanus, tribune, 
71 B. C, procured by help of Pompey, who had just returned 
from his Spanish conquests, the restoration to his office of much 
of its former power. Considering this an achievement towards 
popular freedom, he placed the head of Liberty on his money, 
with the legend libertatis. The reverse has the legend pal- 
ikanvs and the rostra or speaking platform of the tribunes, to 
the use of which they were now restored. It bears a table and 



is supported in front by a row of low columns, to three of 
which the beaks- of ships are attached. 

At the close of Pompey's campaigns in the East, in 62 B. C, 
he committed the government of all Syria, from the Euphrates 
to Egypt, into the hands of M. Aemilius Scaurus, who renewed 
the war against Aretas. This seeker for a throne quickly gave 
up the unequal contest and paid the Eomans three hundred 
talents for peace. The conqueror on his return, being made 
curule aedile with P. Plautius Hypsaeus in 58, celebrated the 
public games with extraordinary magnificence, and issued 
money with the authority of the senate, in honor of himself 
and his colleague. One side shows a camel and King Aretas 
on his knees holding the rein, and with the right hand present- 
ing an olive branch hung with suppliant fillets. Below we 
read rex aretas and above m. scavr. ex. senatus consulto. 
The reverse has Jupiter with the thunder-bolt, in a swift quad- 
riga — legends p.HYPSAE.AEm'fts cyruIis — c. hypsae. cos . prei- 
YERnum CAFTVm. The latter line relates to the capture of 
Privernum in 341 B. C. by the consul C. Plautius, and teaches 
us that his cognomen was Hypsaeus, while the prominence 
given to that remote and not very memorable event betrays 
the want of distinction in the family. 

Another denarius of the Plautia gens alludes to an un- 
recorded victory. The legend of the obverse is A. plavtivs. 
a~et>Ms cvRulis. senatus consulto, around a female head, 
adorned in an oriental manner with a turreted crown, and per- 
haps representing Ceres, the care of whose temple (Acdes) orig- 
inally gave the Aediles their name. The reverse has the same 
device as the preceding coin, of a camel held by a man kneel- 
ing and offering an olive branch. But the name below is bac- 
chivs ivdaevs of whom no other historic record remains. 
There is no doubt, according to Eckhel, that when Pompey, by 
his general Scaurus, forced Aretas to sue for peace, he also by 
his general A. Plautius, dictated terms to Bacchius, apparent- 
ly one of the Arabian dynasty, but a Jew by religion, which 
military success is commemorated on the money 6truck by 
Plautus as aedile. 



10 

The first triumvirate, which was already controlling the af- 
fairs of Kome, secured in the year of Scaurus' aedileship, the 
removal from Italy of the two leaders of the senate, Cicero and 
Cato. The latter was sent as Propraetor to Cyprus to check 
the power of Ptolemy, and the following quinarii seem to have 
been struck on his return after two years. The first has a fe- 
male head with legend m. cato pko. Turaetore — reverse, Victory 
seated with a patera in the right, and a palm branch in the left 
hand ; beneath victkix. The other has simply m. cato, with 
a boyish head, below which is a small scorpion ; — reverse as 
the preceding. The device of these reverses may refer to the 
little temple of Victoria virgo dedicated by M. Porcius Cato, 
an ancestor of Uticensis, and may even be an image of the 
goddess herself. The proper date of the coins is claimed by 
some to be when Cato was engaged in Africa in the war against 
Caesar, to which last period of the republic the following denarius 
of Q. Metellus undoubtedly belongs. On the reverse is an ele- 
phant, which may be either an allusion to the triumph of L. Cae- 
cilius Metellusin the first Punic war, when a hundred and twenty 
elephants were brought to Kome, or a symbol of Africa 
where the war was conducted by Quintus with Cato's active 
assistance, or a reference to his well known confidence in its 
military value. The initials Q. C. M. P. I., are interpreted by 
comparison with similar coins to mean Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius 
Imperator. This last title belonged to Metellus ex officio, but 
that of Pius was inherited. The obverse has a female head 
and near it a stork, which as a bird noted for its pietas, is ap- 
propriate to the agnomen of Metellus. 

We have now come to the rise of the empire. In our review 
of the family coins of the republic, we have seen mementoes 
of campaigns, conquests and triumphs, as well as of political 
changes and the fortunes of their authors, sometimes indicated 
too obscurely to have been recognized without other history, yet 
illustrating in return the records which cast light upon them. 
They show the strength of the Eoman family feeling. The 
men of later times never grew weary in cherishing the renown 
of their great ancestors, and deeds two centuries old are paraded 



11 

by pious descendants. The rigid aristocracy of birth, whose 
efforts to retain power had convulsed the commonwealth in 
earlier days, had yielded to an aristocrcy of wealth, but its 
spirit was perpetuated in the feelings of the people. The ele- 
ments of the state were families rather than individuals, and 
throughout succeeding times no civilized land has been more 
distracted than Italy by the quarrels of family factions. 



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